I've got 14 brand new in the box Lenovo Thinkcentre M58 towers, the problem is they're not supposed to be here. Here's the story...

We've got a parent who works for IBM and through their matching grants program we received 15 M58 towers and 14 LCD displays last August. They were ordered and came in three different shipments, odd since it all came at the same time on our first donation. About a week later I received these 14 towers and knew something wasn't right. I immediately contacted the donor and got a number for a rep with the program. I contacted that person and she let me know it was a duplicate order and had me verify the serial numbers and keep them in their boxes because they were going to be picked up. She would let me know more info when she got it from Lenovo. This was 2 months ago (September 4). I have contacted the program rep via email twice, October 4 and November 4. I have yet to receive any response from her and I know it's the correct email address. I prefer email so I have record of the contact attempts. The last time I called the office I couldn't get a hold of her.

So, what would you do? Would you send a final communication saying if you heard nothing you'd start using them? Or would you let them sit longer hoping a carrier will come to take these boxes and give you your storage space back? I'd love to buy them outright but I was told (2 months ago) the school was not allowed to purchase them outright for legal reasons.

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I would send them a final attempt to get the sorted out. Legally, I don't know when possession becomes the law, but you storing for free should count for something. After a few months, if they were to say, get lost in the shuffle of moving them around, what could they do? And if your school won't let you use them, sounds like eBay might be able to help you out.

I would send one last attempt to communicate and resolve the issue by certified mail. Then after 30 days of no contact, donate them to spiceworks to do some kind of giveaway or contest. You can't be expected to warehouse their equipment forever when it was their screw up. If they don't want it they don't want it.

spiceuser is not responsible for the outcome of advice taken from the community. By following his advice you hereby hold him harmless and all that legal jargon....blah blah blah ....

I had a similar instance a few years ago. After much frustration I told the boss I was sending the company a certified letter with return receipt request. I very clearly stating they had until such and such date to pick them up or I would be donating them to charity. I received a call from the company wanting to set up a date for pickup before my receipt came back to me.

@spiceuser - we're the kind of school still running Compaq at a blazing 733Mhz w/ 128 to 256MB RAM in some areas. Once I replace I would be more than happy to send those to Spiceworks for a giveaway. Does Spiceworks have a birthday coming up where they could have a giveaway of vintage equipment?

It was the only option I could think of to cover myself, not that I know how much coverage it gave me, if any. So I also made sure my boss was on board.

If you do send a letter, make sure you give them time to respond. I know even at my small company it can take a week for me to actually get a letter depending on who signed for it.

If they don't respond, I would make sure you have all your documentation in order before you do anything with the computers. When they arrived, dates/time you tried to contact them and how. If you left voice mails, note what you said and with whom. If you sent email, have a copy.

Of course, this is what I would do, as spiceuser said nordiccamel is not responsible for the outcome of advice taken from the community. By following his advice you hereby hold him harmless and all that legal jargon....blah blah blah ....

Having held onto a photocopier for *18 months* (six months prior to me even joining this place) I can safely say that, in the UK at least, unless you have a receipt or written confirmation from an authorised person at the company you receive the goods from, the goods are still their property.

Issuing "final demands" means absolutely nothing. It's up to them to collect the units, them to arrange collection, and them to pay for collection, as it was their error. You could probably charge them for storage, though. I'd say $2 per unit per day is what I'd call reasonable; 14 boxed towers would take up the space of a reasonably sized car, and the police over here charge £12 per day when they seize a vehicle.

Up to you though. Best thing to do would be to speak to your Legal team, probably through your line manager.

I'd go with getting legal advise. As WTFBBQ says here in the UK they're the property of the supplier, no if's but or maybe's.

Having said that you could inform the supplier due to lack of storage space you will have to use the equipment up until such times they come to collect them, that way you can't be accused of theft (as you've notified the suppliers of their mistake and are letting them take them back), and if they don't turn up at any time you've got the machines in use. (might annoy the users a bit if their nice shiney new computer disappears though). Just make sure you have a track of which one's don't really belong to you.

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Under the Unsolicited Goods and Services Act 1971, (as amended) it is an offence to demand payment for goods known to be unsolicited, in other words, they were sent to a person without any prior request made by them or on their behalf.

Someone who receives goods in these circumstances may retain them as an unconditional gift, and does not have to pay for or return any unwanted goods. Anyone who receives a demand for payment for unsolicited goods should report the matter to their local Trading Standards Department.

However, in the case of unsolicited goods received before 1 November 2000, the recipient is required to give notice to the sender to collect them within 30 days, or otherwise to wait for 6 months, before being able to treat the goods as their own property.

Nate, I'd say the email with read receipt would not be acceptable, but then the certified letter doesn't really do much good either.

What about asking the parent to check into it? maybe they have a different contact that you can talk to?

I don't think it really matters whether it's UK or US, it still belongs to Lenovo unless you have paperwork that says otherwise, or a contract that defines when something becomes your property and how long, how much notice, etc.

I got this contact info from the parent, he is the first person I contacted. I suppose I can call him again to see if he can spark some life into this but I'm not sure what else he could do. I do have the shipping receipt, that's as close to the contract as I can get (and it's not that close).

We actually just went through this. We had funds that were distributed through a state agency and although local districts got to pick from a number of available (hardware) items the actual P.O. was written and handled by that agency. They dibursed the funds and made shipping arrangements with vendors.

Somehow we had problems with three vendors. We ordered twenty Promethean boards through a large national vendor and received forty. It took weeks to convince this large distributor that they had indeed made a mistake. We'd like to have kept the other twenty but someone in Round Rock finally listened and asked if we had twenty boxes or forty. Since we had forty they sent a truck for the ones sent in error.

We had also oreder three HP servers from a different large vendor. They sent four. They did believe they could make a mistake and paid UPS to pick up the extra one.

In the same distribution of products a neighboring school district was missing fourteen Hitachi projectors - thirteen of which were here in our district. Took weeks to straighten that out. After the dust settled (and after we all agreed they did not belong to us) on the day a 40 foot truck showed up to pick up these fourteen projectors I foiund out they went to a district 8 miles from here. If I had known that and the vendor had allowed me to I would have driven them there on the way home.

I would talk to your boss and get counsel involved. You need to send a lawyer's letter (certified, proof of delivery) explaining the problem and giving a time line of all attempts to resolve the situation.

At the end of the letter, include a statement that says something like ... if you are unable to resolve this issue and have the equipment removed from our premises within 30 (or 21 or 14) calendar days, we will consider this matter resolved and the equipment as an additional donation....

If you do end up with the equipment, be sure to quickly send a donation acknowledgement.

If you don' t need the hardware .... fundraising auction sounds like a good idea.

Allen

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